We’ve Seen the Videos. We’ve Protested the Shootings. Now Let’s Address the Police Violence Problem.

Michael McQuillan in 2015 and 2016 served on the NYPD Training Advisory Committee, chairing its Race Subcommittee. He teaches history in Brooklyn, New York at the School for Global Studies.

Militarized police forces plus racist myths of black threat and white
supremacy cause the police violence in minority communities that Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. in a Detroit speech in 1966 called “the main problem in
America’s race relations.” Mandatory transparent
use of body cameras with both institutional and implicit bias training
programs, done proactively elsewhere as piloted in the Seattle Police
Department, are minimum first steps needed to halt the horrific shooting
pattern that on Monday killed Alton Sterling and on Tuesday Philando Castile.

Their deaths warrant protest and outrage. “They damn well should and everyone should
see them,” I thought when CNN reporter Nick Valencia warned that videos of the
shootings are graphic. While other
correspondents and our elected officials obsess over whether protests will stay
peaceful, we might well remember that the Constitution’s First Amendment makes
clear that “the redress of grievances” is the goal of protest rights. Where does hope lie at this point – to stop
the killing, keep safe our citizens and restore trust in equitable police
service and law enforcement? Who will
channel the energy of protest into effective police regulation and reform?

Secretary Clinton, according to the New
York Times, said that “Something is profoundly wrong when many of our
citizens have reason to believe that our country views their lives as less
precious than others.” This recital of
stereotype is sadly true but too little from a potential president. The predictable defense by others that police
officers face sudden life-and-death decisions on duty, and the clichéd
assurance that the vast majority of police officers selflessly risk their own
safety on our behalf denies that both sides – police officers and people of
color – would benefit from our solving this problem.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on National Public Radio that the
NYPD’s 35,000 member retraining programs “will serve as a national model.” Service on its Training Advisory Committee,
aiding in New York’s shift from lecture to scenario-based role play, the review
of its Implicit Bias curriculum and steps toward reinforcing training insights
and content for seasoned field officers and mentored rookies alike made me for
once feel hopeful that long-term change could occur.

But humility is in order. There
are indeed gallant and brave police officers; you and I pray they will risk
danger to save us from it. But will
their colleagues, cynical or defensive, take seriously mandated training? Experienced
officers are said to warn new arrivals to forget everything they learned at the
academy. Some feel unfairly blamed for
the inappropriate actions of colleagues, others in uniting against outsiders
who don’t understand the realities of crime response and crime prevention. Even if they train in good faith, is that
enough? Shouldn’t New York put its own
house in order by revising its use-of-force policies, broadening body camera
requirements, banning the chokehold that on Staten Island killed Eric Garner,
and adding institutional bias to its imminent implicit bias program before
proclaiming its “model” worthy of replication?

President Obama observed
that the Sterling and Castile deaths are part of a pattern, not isolated
incidents, less a “black and Latino issue than an American problem.” As Americans we on the Fourth of July rejoiced
in our freedoms but democracy here is a lie if when the dead men are laid to
rest we turn back to business as usual and leave fellow citizens vulnerable to
the unsolved problem of police violence in minority communities.